Louisiana Writer Award winner Valerie Martin speaks at Loyola

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New Orleans-born writer and winner of the 2010 Louisiana Writer Award, Valerie Martin, will discuss her writing career during a special interview by playwright John Biguenet, the Loyola University New Orleans Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor of English. A reception will be held at Loyola on March 28 at 6 p.m., in Bobet Hall, Room 101, followed by the talk at 7 p.m. Both are free and open to the public.

Martin is the author of three collections of short fiction including “The Unfinished Novel” and “Other Stories.” She has written eight novels, including “The Confessions of Edward Day,” “Trespass,” “Italian Fever” and “The Great Divorce.” In addition, her novel “Mary Reilly” was winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka prize and was the subject of a film directed by Stephen Frears. Her novel “Property,” won Britain's Orange Prize, was short-listed for France's Prix Femina Etranger and placed on the long list for Ireland's Impac award. She is also the author of the nonfiction work “Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis.”

Martin is a visiting professor of English at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., and has taught at the University of New Mexico at Las Cruces, the University of Alabama, Sarah Lawrence College, and at her alma maters, the Universities of New Orleans and Massachusetts.

The lecture is sponsored by the department of English in Loyola’s College of Humanities and Natural Sciences. For more information, contact Sean Snyder in Loyola’s Office of Public Affairs at smsnyder@loyno.edu or call 504-861-5882.